CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

This is a general comment about the installation and upgrade documentation for CiviCRM (not just for 4.3).
The documentation always assumes that the user has command line access to a UNIX (eg Linux) server.  These instructions are not so helpful to users (like me) who are using a shared server from a hosting service who do not allow any command line access at all, but provide either an FTP access or a File Manager access, so command line oriented instructions are not very helpful. 
Also it is possible to install CiviCRM in Windows (using a package such as XAMPP), although I have no idea if that is encouraged or supported but it works for me, and these UNIX command line instructions are even less helpful in that context.  (I would not use a Windows installation for a production server, but it can be very helpful for experimental or development environments, eg I run such a setup on my Windows laptop.)

To give a simple example http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC43/Upgrade+Drupal+Sites+to+4.3+-+Drupal+7#UpgradeDrupalSitesto4.3-Drupal7-8.Unpackthelatestpackageandverifypermissions says

Ensure that your Drupal filesdirectory is writeable by the webserver

and then gives the UNIX command line code to accomplish this
// Modify this line to use your real drupal root directory
cd <drupal home>/sites/default
chmod -R a+rwx filesIt would make more sense to an FTP client user (eg using FileZilla) or a File Manager user simply to remark that the permissions on the sites/default directory are typically set to read-only (by the Drupal installer) and this can be seen in the directory permissions which are typically set to 0555 (ie User, Group and World have Read and Execute permissions), but that at least User needs Write permission, (ie that the permissions should be at least 0755).  Instructions phrased like this would be more intelligible.
Also referring to the webserver as if it another user is fine if the reader is familiar with UNIX concepts but is baffling otherwise.

I am willing to work on improving the documentation at the forthcoming London sprint in April http://civicrm.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=273, but I would like some feedback about these remarks from others in the community, please, to guide me in the improvements that I can make.

Thanks
Mark   

Thanks Michael, I wasn't aware of that, so that's why I used XAMPP, and installed Drupal and CiviCRM on it, which works for me.

Mark